Father of PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS), has named former President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Ken Kutaragi, the recipient of the coveted 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be bestowed at this year's Interactive Achievement Awards (IAA) ceremony on February 7 at Red Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in conjunction with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit 2008.

If anything it's Sony fault for the PS3 to be in a high price as it is. Ken didn't want to include a blu-ray player in the system to begin with but Sony insited for it to be included for them to kill "two birds in one stone".

That's not true so please don't keep spreading that. Kutaragi has always had advancements in software mediums intergreted with the hardware he makes. Like he did with CDs in the PS1 and DVDs in the PS2.

For Kutaragi Blu-ray was the way to go. It was the kind of thing he always wanted to implement and intergrate in his console.

Kutaragi did not resign because of the PS3 being priced so high...he resigned because of pretty much breaking a lot of 3rd party ties...

he failed with the PS3 only in development dead lines...specs kept changing...PR reports were a nightmare, and he made very little effort to have a finalized development kit available to 3rd parties in line with the 360...development kits were in fact not even totally spec'd until summer of 06 (basically leaving 3rd party devs with little idea of what hardware would actually be in the home PS3)...

he had a great vision...but was slow to implement it...hence...him not being in charge anymore...the blu ray diode fiasco was not his fault, thats what drove the price up and delayed the system overall...he also turned his back on 3rd party deals to keep certain franchises exclusive...he was single-handedly blamed for letting GTAIV release day and date with a 360 version, a franchise he claimed "the playstation brand doesn't need anymore"...we will see how accurate that statement is in coming months...

but thank god it did get delayed...the way development kits were back in 06; would have made PS3 games look like Xbox 1 games...and the 360's first generation games would have destroyed them all...and the way 360 games looked back then, that is saying something...

Yeah, you can't blame a person that bring billions of profit to the company when Sony was losing money badly in other division. His creation basically kept sony alive and what they lost now is not even 1/10 of what he helped sony made.

Bows the the man that saved gaming and change the gaming insdustry for ever taking it to new highs never seen no company has or ever will do the same Sony the best the gaming industry has to offer.

once again if you lived at the time the 1st time PSX was intruced and there was alot of doubts and nintendo and sega didnt think of them as competition funny it only took Sony once generation to totally destroy kidtendo and another to kill Sega the fact is you dont mess with Sony look at now, even with all the media bias and millions od haters around the world, at the end Sony will come on top beacuase they will offer you something special and you know when you buy a PlayStation you will be getting the best of the best and you will never be looking at anything else.

First I must say that anyone who thinks bad of Ken Kutaragi is an idiot who knows nothing about gaming this man literally expanded gaming to a wider audience and saved the industry single handly with the PS1 and PS2..and because he had big dreams for the PS3 and stumbled a little along the way...he's crazy and what not...if it wasn't for the PS1 they're wouldn't be any xbox 360 today

and now at guy above^^^..lol..200mill..?? not even the DS will sell that amount...but the PS3 is by far one of th best designed consoles ever..and most powerful of them all..!!

?...the PS2 is the system to beat...the DS won't even catch the PS2, the next nintendo handheld is most likely going to appear at the next E3 or TGS...and at ~60 million currently, it is only half way there...

my guess is that it will be a very very long time before something hits that many units sold...MS will never do it...they have a completely different take on the hardware side of things, mostly with trying to shorten hardware lifespans...Nintendo has seen better sales of stuff this year than in the past 10 for the most part, but nothing of it has shown legs yet...

the PS2 sold that well because it increased yearly until 07...sales peaked last christmas for that thing...7 years after it came out...no other company has managed to have a system remotely similar to that...the DS is doing great, and setting weekly records and this and that...but it still has to do what it is doing for another several years...which is highly unlikely...

I think a lot of people misjudge how crazy the PS2 is sales wise...I thought CNET had some statistic last year that was like 1 out of 3 16-26 year old male in the US owned a PS2 or something...that is a big deal...

Ladies and Gentlemen you're looking at the man who has changed the world/ industry. I don't care what brand you're loyal XBOX, PS, or Nintendo this man deserves any award they have to offer. He is responisble for bring out the XBOX, made nintendo change there position in the game world, made kids fat, made the government step in to give ratings, had crippled PC sales, first man to go toe to toe with Bill Gates and win, etc.

Ken Kutagari might have been a "dictator", but he had his visions and he knew exactly what he was doing (PS3 is an exception, since it's to early to make any assumptions). PS/PS2 dominated the whole industry and changed the way we interact with games and many people salute him for these achievements (Peter Moore for instant). There will be people that will say stuff like "PS3 is liek teh Last" or the "DS is pwning the PSP", but PSP is Sony's first console in the handheld market and it's to early to make drastic assumptions about the Next-Generation Race. It was in a way a big loss when he announced that he would retire from Sony, but at the same time I have great confidence in Kaz and the awesome Brittish Phill Harrison (The other of course) to go beyond with the PS3 and ROCK ON.

Keeps the legacy that he set with Playstation 3. Superior technology and amazing functionality is what's defined previous Playstation platforms, and they need to stick with it. Toshiba and IBM did a bangup job with Cell, and STI is still working on new Cell chips for the future. As long as the PS3 continues to do well, PS4 should be just as technically impressive.

Yeah, Sony took a beating for the first year from a financial standpoint, but just looking at their software compared to the competition's makes it obvious that it was money well spent. That, and the defect rate is astronomically low. (less than 0.1%, compared to the industry standard of 3~5%)

i love the comments of ken made gaming what it is, i wouldn't be into gaming if not for him, ken is god...ect

lol what foolishness...half of you dont even know what hes famous for beyond playstation he did alot more then that....lol

ken should be nominated for worlds biggest retard in how he literally was forced out of Sony because of his continuely psychotic induced announcements of 4d, 120fps, and 1080p on all games as well as the system was basically the 2nd comming of christ, he didn't leave sony out of choice he was given a choice of either staying ceo and having all responsiblities taken away cause he had become an eternal bungler, or to step down with some honor intact.

Sony: "We're going to add HDMI to the Playstation 3. It's going to be important later on."

Microsoft: "HDMI isn't necessary this generation."

a few months later: "Um, we're adding HDMI to the X Box 360."

Sony: "We're going to include Blu Ray in the Playstation 3, because disc capacity will be an issue later on."

Microsoft: "DVD is enough for games."

various developers a few months later: "we're having trouble fitting GTA4, Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, and Blue Dragon on DVD9s."

Sony: "The Playstation 3 can output 1080p via HDMI for TVs that support it."

Microsoft: "You'll never see 1080p games this generation. It's an unnecessary feature."

a few months, and a few PS3 1080p games later: "Uh, there will be games outputting at 1080p for the X Box 360."

lack of vision: a definition by Figboy

Kutaragi may be crazy as all get out, but he defined the modern day gaming age as we know it.

much like Shigeru Miyamoto defined gaming for the 80's and early 90's, Kutaragi defined gaming for the late 90's, and the past 10 years.

CDs were a good addition to gaming. DVDs even better. Blu Ray, and even HD DVD are also important to console gaming, and it's only a matter of time before the fickle press sees this. there has already been signs of this (didn't Rockstar say that LA Noire was a PS3 exclusive because they could fit the game on a Blu Ray disc, and not a standard DVD9?

the Playstation 3 is an excellent console, as is the 360, but as far as looking ahead and designing machines that are prepared for certain gaming eventualities; remember, *MILLIONS of gamers everywhere said that the Playstation 2 was "too expensive," and DVD was just "Sony pushing an unwanted format on us gamers. we want games, not movies, Sony," and yet gaming is what it *IS today because of the inclusion of DVD. dual layer DVDs were created pretty much *BECAUSE games couldn't fit on a single layer, 4 gig DVD.

Kutaragi has shown some excellent foresight in the past.

the Playstation 3 *WAS expensive. now, it's par for the course, especially considering it's functionality. there are plenty of [email protected] games, both exclusive (Uncharted and Ratchet), and multi-platform (COD4 and Assassin's Creed), and both the 360 and PS3 are comparable for the time being in terms of capability (i strongly believe the DVD9 limitations of the 360 will hurt it in the long run).

i think he deserves this award in the same way that Miyamoto deserves his Lifetime Achievement awards. they are the Grandfather and Father of the modern gaming industry. without their contributions, gaming would have the different landscape. come on guys, give credit where it's due. Nintendo and Miyamoto can't do it *ALL, you know.

He himself didnt want PS3 to be expensive. Probably he didnt have a choice. Either he had to fulfill his vision (and hence making PS3 expensive) or let it go just as a powerful PS2 (hence making it cheaper). I think he did the right thing by making his vision come true. And saying spit on his face is just too much. He rewrote a whole era of gaming and even the future of gaming single handedly. And PS3 now even not expensive. What are u crying at?